


How Much of It Is Fire

by significantowl



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: (in the sense that Karen gets turned on watching Matt fight), Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Post-Season/Series 02, Reconciliation, Voyeurism, Wall Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-14 05:13:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10529649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/significantowl/pseuds/significantowl
Summary: It’s a short clip, but it’s a good one. Karen can see the Devil’s grin, that wide, dangerous thing. She can hear his huffing, grunting breaths, and his animal roar when the offender tries to slip away. She can see that he has no interest in beingcareful.She can see that he doesn’t want to stop.Karen sees someone whounderstands.Online, everything Matt ever hid from Karen is only click away. After Matt’s confession, she watches videos of Daredevil fighting, and finds his rage and violence turn her on; when he fights an attacker right in front of her, it’s no different.And Karen’s done with things being hidden away.(Forthis kinkmeme prompt.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was a long time in progress! So many thanks to Capriccio and Elliceluella for getting me through, and to everyone who encouraged and feedbacked at the meme! ♥

The videos are terrible. The quality sucks. Karen saves them in a playlist that grows every time Google alerts her to the appearance of new one. Most of them are grainy, shot from a distance; if you and your camera phone are in a position to get a close-up of the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen in action, odds are good you're busy getting the shit beat out of you.

There are exceptions, of course. Most people the Devil saves run when he tells them to run, but some can't turn themselves away. Some have to stand witness. Those are the people Karen understands.

(She remembers in flashes: cold rain, the ache of bruising around her throat. Breaking glass, her helter-skelter run down the stairwell to get out to the street, to see what was left of the Mask and her attacker after their fall. His determination, visceral. Fire and steel.

Did she realize, back then, just how much of it was fire?)

Sure, plenty of people who film Daredevil - even the ones who owe him their lives - are out to see how many hits they can score on YouTube. But Karen knows that's not the whole story. She knows the feeling that sweeps through you in the moment a savior comes, when you never expected nor dreamed of any but yourself. The wild thump of your heartbeat, the dizzying shock of hope. She knows what it feels like to to see your pain taken willingly on another person's shoulders. What it's like to be spared.

Karen has her favorite videos. Tonight, she finds another.

The problem with writing - any time, but particularly to a deadline - is that it requires focus. The _other_ problem with writing is that so often you do it while sitting in front of a distraction box. Karen dicks around, clicks around. She keeps a pair of earbuds in her top left drawer, and when she sees the thumbnail for the latest Daredevil video - by the timestamp, uploaded tonight, and probably filmed just minutes ago, while she’d been sitting comfortably at her desk - she pulls them out without looking away from the screen.

The Devil’s frozen in a fighting stance, fist raised at his shoulder, ready for a lightning jab. His mouth is open. The shot is close enough for her to make out the angry arch of his parted lips. She's going to hear him when she presses play, she knows it, she knows it. She seats the headphones firmly in her ears, clicks the button, and drinks it in: Matt's guttural, wordless rage.

She thinks of it that way purposefully. _Matt's_ rage. The same woman who puts six bullets in a man can be transfixed by the magic of a ceiling made of glittering lights; the same man who wears one suit to punch assholes into the ground can wear another while he’s putting them away in court, and still quietly, desperately, miss the sky.

She never believed that part was a lie. 

It’s a fairly short clip. Ninety-four seconds. The fight was half-won before the filming even began, was probably half-won from the first punch; the Devil is burning with fury, and his opponent’s an amateur, landing only the weakest of hits. The clip ends when Matt, mid-swing, grits out, “Didn’t I tell you to _go_ ”; the screen goes dark, and Karen’s left without an ending, left without seeing him _win_ , and she’s hitting the replay button before she realizes it. 

It’s short, but it’s a good one. She can see the Devil’s grin, that wide, dangerous thing. She can hear his huffing, grunting breaths, and his animal roar when the offender tries to slip away. She can see that he has no interest in being _careful._ She can see that he doesn’t want to stop.

Karen sees someone who _understands_.

When she picks at the threads of her anger, Karen keeps finding new patterns in the weave. But this one emerges over and over: the number of times Matt said _no_ , said _stop_ , said _safe_ , when he could have been saying _me too_.

Six views, seven. Doing her part for the uploader’s hit count. At first Karen’s eyes were glued to the screen, but by now she’s just listening, blackness behind her lids, volume cranked up painfully loud. She's hit with a jolt every time she hears Matt grunt.

Ten views, eleven. Karen’s feeling warm, heat at the center of her body, heat at the back of her neck. Her fingers are twisted up in knots on the desk in front of her laptop, and that's for safety, she realizes when she looks down at her bloodless knuckles, that’s to keep them from landing warm and restless in her lap. 

Standing, Karen pops out her earbuds, presses the laptop lid closed. Runs a slightly trembling hand through her hair. It's time to go home.

*

It's a cold night, and the streets are as quiet as they ever get in New York. Karen has her eyes wide open, reading her surroundings the way she always does when she walks at night; she tells herself that's the whole truth, that she's not looking for the busted window she saw in the background of the video, or the rickety fire escape. She's not looking for Matt.

If the Devil’s around, and if he wants her to see him, she'll see him. If he doesn't want her to…. 

Maybe Karen just wants to be seen.

Well. _Heard. Felt._ Maybe she wants his ear to turn her way, maybe she wants the thrum of her heart to follow him home tonight, keep him company as he peels off the suit, washes off the blood. Maybe she wants to be his lullaby.

(How long does his blood stay up after a fight? How long is it before he can breathe like a man who wears a tie around his neck, move like a man who sits at a desk?)

Or maybe Karen wants to keep him up. That night on her front stoop, behind the sweet kisses, beneath their clasped hands, the things her pulse must've told him… the things it might be telling him right now. Maybe this is what she wants: for his dick to rise and fatten, for him to fist his hands in his sheets and never touch himself because he didn't deserve her back then and he doesn't deserve her now. Maybe she wants him arching up over his stomach, long and fruitlessly hard. Maybe she wants him to ache.

Her heels ring quick and clear against the sidewalk; hearing them, Karen slows her steps deliberately. No reason for her to rush. It's a good night.

Steam billows from a vent in the sidewalk, and her breath clouds the air in front of her, puffy and white. Warmth, slipping out into the night. She leaves a trail of it wherever she goes, doesn’t she? For those with the means and the will to follow. How long do those breadcrumbs last? 

Three blocks to go. 

Karen doesn’t look into the shadows, or up to the rooftops. She just walks. At her building, she certainly doesn’t linger on the stoop; it's straight up the stairs, into her apartment, deadbolt sliding home. Her heart’s beating rabbit-quick, her breath is coming fast, but so what? That's life in a walk-up.

She kicks her heels into the closet, steps out of her skirt, hangs it up - she can probably get one more wear out of it, if she doesn't let it wrinkle. Still in her blouse and slip, Karen sinks down onto the edge of her bed, pulls out her phone, and presses play. No headphones. Volume jacked all the way up. Matt’s harsh breath and harsher grunts, the impact of this fists, the anger in his chest - they fill her little apartment, echo back to her.

It was only the ghost of the Devil’s presence in her old place that helped Karen stay there as long as she did. The memory of him making the Union Allied man pay. He came to this one the night the Hand took her; he told her so, when he told her everything else.

Only the walls know what he sounded like then.

She's feeling warm again. Karen wonders what tonight’s particular asshole did. What tipped Matt over that edge. It’s not that she _needs_ to know, she’s not questioning whether it was deserved; it would just be nice to round out the picture, see it with all the corners shaded in. Life should always be like that. A tapestry laid bare.

Karen finishes getting ready for bed with a glass in her hand, two fingers of rum, two ice cubes. The rum came from a bottle with a kraken on it that she bought just because it made her think of drinking the eel at Josie’s. Dark liquor and creatures of the deep. Good times are worth remembering, even when the memories wind themselves around and around you, pull you low. 

Turns out it’s not bad rum. Every sip sends more warmth flooding through Karen, right down through her core, till she's settled against her pillows with her phone in her hand and just a few swallows left. 

She thought she was done with the video for the night. She’s not. One more time, before she sleeps.

*

It's so dark.

His smile is the glint of a blade, sharp and sure, but his kiss is all Matt, soft and sweet and careful, so careful. She feels like the empty shell of a robin’s egg, precious and hollow, but it's not her choice. He's making her feel this way.

She'll make him stop.

Karen slides her hands up, gripping his helmet - except it's not his helmet, the evidence of her fingertips outweighs that of her eyes. She knows how it _should_ feel: she touched it once before, that night in the dying light of their office, while Matt stood and waited for her benediction or her curse. But this isn't the smooth, hard curve she remembers. This is Matt's hair, thick and soft between her fingers, and no matter how tightly she digs into his scalp that doesn't change.

Karen tugs. Hard. She wants to startle him out of this gentleness, but he's so damn insistent with it, so worshipful, and maybe there’s a time when she would love it, but this isn't it.

There’s a wall behind him, rough exposed brick. Some abandoned building? His apartment? It's all the same to her as she pushes in close, braces one palm against the brick, and kisses him. Shows him how sharp _she_ can be. Pulls on his bottom lip and lets him feel her teeth.

The body armor melts away, and he's in a tee and sweatpants, soft things, _soft_ things, and Karen twists her fingers in his hair in exasperation.

But it’s fitting, because Matt never could quite hide his strength from her in those. That day in his apartment after his quote-unquote car accident, there'd been no chance of hiding his injuries in the morning light, and no chance of hiding the rest of it, either. The heft of his biceps. The breadth of his chest. And she’s learned, since then, what those arms feel like around her, and she knows - 

She knows he's hard, and getting harder.

Karen presses against his body, shifts her hips, gets him nice and heavy and thick right at her center. Only his sweatpants and her sleep pants separate them now - _soft things_ , but his fingers are branding her waist, and his hips are jerking up. 

And up. He doesn’t want to stop.

Her heartbeat is an ocean in her ears. His breath, Christ, his breath is the roar of a hurricane. They're on the verge of something, she and Matt, and any moment now the roll of her hips and the throb of his dick will drive them to that tipping point, and she won’t feel fragile, and she won’t feel hollow, and nothing will be hidden away -

Streetlights cast a yellow glare on her ceiling, and Karen’s sheets are twisted around her waist. Her fingers are kneading her thigh, and she slides them over, gives herself what she needs.

*

It's another cold night. When Karen screams - and she _screams_ \- she imagines it splintering out into the dark, rattling glass, shooting tiny cracks through the frost on bricks and windowpanes, a blast radius with herself at the center.

“Thought I said you wouldn’t want to do that,” says the jackass who’s pinning Karen’s arms behind her back. Smart move on his part, because if her hands were free she’d have been inside her purse already. She’d be holding her gun.

“Yeah, well, sorry I decided not to take your word for it.” Karen's words are half-lost to the hand tightening over her mouth.

_The Lord helps those who help themselves_ , her mother had liked to say, a refrain to meet one childhood struggle after another. Karen had stopped seeing God in that equation a long time ago. New York certainly hadn’t brought him back.

_Scream for the devil, and start fighting your own way out._

Karen squirms in the guy’s grip, driving her elbows back as best she can, aiming for stomach or ribs or _anything_ that'll make him break his hold. They're down below the street, at the bottom of a half-flight of steps, wedged into a narrow space in front of a basement door - the one she’d been on her way out of when the jackass jumped her. Just over their heads, keeping them well-hidden in its shadow, is another half-flight of steps leading up to the building’s main entrance. Is a second jackass up there playing lookout? She wouldn't be surprised.

Fight. Fight. Karen stomps down on the guy’s left foot. He staggers, and she gears up to do it again. She wishes to fuck she was wearing boots -

A thud, echoing down from the stairs above. 

Company.

Karen grins, feeling it shape her face into something savage in the dark. While the jackass is distracted by the sound overhead, she gets in another really good stomp, enough to let her put a little distance between them, although he’s still got her wrist twisted in a vise grip when Daredevil drops down from above.

There’s a frozen moment, one heartbeat, where everyone - _everyone_ \- knows exactly what’s about to happen. And then Karen’s jackass tries to drag her closer, like he’s gone brain-dead enough to think he’s going to use her for some kind of leverage, and the Devil moves.

Of course she knows what Daredevil can do, but this isn't happening across a room, or down the street, or on her computer screen. It's right here, right where she stands, and that's Matt's jaw, clenching. Those are Matt's fists.

He strikes, chopping the jackass in the throat, hard and brutal in those heavy leather gloves. There’s a terrible cut-off choking sound, and Karen wrenches herself from the guy’s grasp while he's still gasping for breath. Because she's been dying to, Karen turns and knees him with all she's got, smiling fiercely as the impact sings through her body.

She gets her first good look at him as he sinks down to his knees. Taller than she or Matt - but she'd been able to tell that much already - pale skin, greasy brown hair. He starts struggling back up, which is incredibly dumb, because it’s giving the Devil exactly what he wants. 

And Matt _goes_ for it. Fast blows to soft spots, every punch landing heavy, fighting like he's never heard the word _enough_. When the guy fumbles with his shirttail and Karen sees the glint of a blade winking above his waistband, a real jolt of fear shoots through her. She opens her mouth in warning, but it’s unnecessary. Matt's on it like a shot, jerking the guy’s hand up, grabbing the knife and sending it scuttling off into the darkness. 

Karen tracks it, picks it up. Better safe than sorry.

 

Nothing on the videos prepared her for this. What it would sound like when Daredevil’s fists met flesh, the visceral slam of a body hit. Or the sound of a blow connecting with that red armor, or worse, a fist driving into Daredevil’s cheek - Matt's giving much, much better than he gets, but this guy has obviously seen a fight or two, and a few of his punches are hitting home.

The Devil hasn't told Karen to run. 

Maybe _he_ wants to be seen.

But it’s sound that keeps assaulting Karen’s senses, driving deep under her skin. Matt’s breathing like something wild, like something Karen would circle far, far around if she came upon it in the woods, and the noises that rise up from his throat make her think of blood, make her think of teeth.

Karen’s pulse is throbbing in her wrists, roaring in her ears. Not fear. Nothing like it. This fight’s already won.

“Let me guess,” Matt says, around harsh, panting breaths, when the man’s lying on the ground beneath his boot. “Nothing random about this. This guy wanted _you_ , and you know why.”

Stepping closer, Karen says, “Three gas leaks in this building in the past six months. Old pipes. City guys come in each time. No move to repair, no move to replace, no move to condemn the building and get these people to safer homes. Somebody wants it to blow.” She’s beside Matt now, staring down at the man on the ground. “Maybe he knows who.”

A glance at Matt shows a muscle twitching in his cheek. Then he’s hauling the guy up and slamming him against the basement door. “Oh, please give me a bunch of shit about not knowing anything,” he says. “Please. Make my night.”

“Jay, I do business for Jay, he hangs out at a bar on 43rd. Probably there right now -”

Matt sighs like he’s been let down before driving a fist into the man’s skull and letting him crumple to the ground.

In the sudden quiet, Karen’s breath catches in her chest. His blood must still be pounding; hers is. The last time Daredevil stood next to her in that red leather suit, he touched her, reached out and held her cheek in his heavy fighter’s glove; Karen’s struck with fury suddenly, a match held to straw. She isn't sure what happens next, but it won’t be that.

Matt took that from her. He gave her the Devil’s name, but he took the Devil’s touch.

A thought her mind can’t shake: touching her mouth to his jaw, feeling past the skin and stubble she knows for the pulse of anger just beneath, drinking it in. A little kiss of thanks, that’s all it would have been if she’d done it last time; so much more complicated now. Karen says, “You, ah. You know Jay?”

“Yeah, we’ve met.” A twist in Matt’s voice that says: my fists met his face. “Busy guy, Jay. It’ll be fun. Catching up.” 

“Yeah? Well, I can't wait to meet him too.” 

It’s a test. Karen pauses, waiting him out, but he doesn’t say, “Karen, Karen, Karen,” in that way that always makes her think _you’re not my father, you know._ Instead, after a long beat, he says, “Okay. But I'll be bringing him to you.”

In pieces, the tone adds, or at the very least, worse for wear. Karen has no complaints.

It’s so easy to see Matt’s lips there in the gash in the mask, now that she knows. The way they press together, quirked up, just before he speaks; the shape of them around words. Would they feel the same as she remembers, soft and sweet and careful? Or would he finally let go?

There must be other threats out there in the city tonight. The fact that he’s making no move to leave, with this one neutralized, is... unexpected. The last time they saw each other, back in the closed offices of Nelson and Murdock, he spilled his secrets like grains of sand; at every prod from her, every question, they came pouring out, and she rushed around with cupped hands, desperate to catch them all.

“I’ll, ahh, I’ll give you some space,” he’d said then, soft, soft, and left her to turn off the lights and lock the door alone.

But tonight, standing here in the dark with blood on his gloves and a beaten man at his feet, he seems planted to the earth. Karen thinks, you saw him ugly and you saw him raw, and you're not walking away. He knows that, now. You're not walking away.

Let him know it, then. 

“I would've shot him,” she says. Voice level. Chin up. “You know that, don't you? You know what I have in my purse.” Karen’s never mentioned the gun before, never mentioned any of the baggage that goes with it, but if his senses are everything he says they are - he has to know it’s there, adding weight to her bag, smelling of steel and oil. 

The knife slides in nicely beside it.

It’s another test. If his response is an automatic _Oh no, you'd never do that, I know you wouldn’t_ \- fail. If he says _I know_ and his lips curl up in a disgust he can't hide - fail.

He exhales. It’s shaky. “I know. And we’re both glad you didn’t have to.”

This time, Karen thinks, that fury blazing up again, _this time_ I didn’t have to, where were you last time - but that wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair for her to expect Daredevil to be everywhere, in every moment, and the world didn’t owe her a savior just because she was in trouble. Besides. She’d answered that call herself. 

But he's not wrong, of course he's not wrong: tonight, she’s glad she didn’t have to.

“You're right,” she says, since he is. “Thank you.”

And, God, the little smile that steals at his lips, the way he ducks his head, it's all Matt, Matt when he's pleased and embarrassed and at a loss for the next word to say. And it's good; it’s softness she forced on _him_.

“Daredevil,” Karen says. “Walk me home.”

*

He walks in the shadows. Even so, even partially obscured by darkness, it’s a startling sight: the Devil grounded, not swinging away, not disappearing into the night, just steady, solid, and silent at her side, walking a path she sets.

She likes it. It satisfies something within her Karen didn’t quite know was wanting. She’d like to have this moment on film too, she thinks. Saved in her playlist. She’d like to see it again.

Two blocks. Three. Just the two of them on the street, like this little corner of the Kitchen belongs only to them. Four -

Karen doesn’t see or hear anything, but something must cross Matt’s radar, because suddenly his hand is on her arm, and he’s drawing her back into a darkened corner. Maybe he pulls just a little bit more than necessary, maybe she stumbles in a little closer than she has to, or maybe both, but they end up with his back to the wall, her pressed tight against him, waiting while a pair of shuffling footsteps passes by.

“Just a New Yorker out for a midnight stroll?” Karen whispers, when - for her - the sound has faded into the distance. She’s sure that the answer is yes; a whiff of a threat, and Matt would’ve shouldered his way in front of her instead of letting her do the work of blocking most of his devil suit from view. 

He makes small noise of agreement, then drops her arm, hand fisting the air at her waist before falling to his side. Karen could take a step back. She doesn’t. She’s studying his face from inches away; that mask with its red lenses over the eyes is so much less disconcerting, now. It’s Matt, and she's used to his eyes being obscured.

She’s used to taking her cues from his mouth.

His lips are gently parted, as if he's trying to taste the air. _Her_ air. And maybe he is; maybe she's hitting the back of his throat right at this very moment. Maybe she’s on his tongue.

Karen’s allowed her own indulgences. She presses her lips to his cheek, feeling his heat, his blood, and his body trembles, a fine, unsuppressed shiver. The soft rush of his breath is like a drug, and slowly, slowly, letting him wait, letting him _want_ , she shifts to kiss the other cheek.

Lightly, so lightly. Karen’s thinking about what he’s told her about his senses, his skin; what it must be like for him to have his body bound up and hidden from the world in that heavy leather suit. How his cheeks and jaw and lips must tingle, alert and alive and open to it all, surrogates for the rest of him. 

She thinks about all that, then drops another light kiss on his lips.

She's flipped a switch. Gasping into her mouth, Matt clutches at her shoulder, her hip, holding on for dear life. His hands in his gloves are solid, heavy weights, and he’s going to owe her a new coat or a trip to the dry cleaners when this is over - she really doesn’t want to think about the blood that’s probably on those gloves - but the rawness of his grip floods Karen with heat, and she sucks hard on his bottom lip, enough to drag a hoarse groan from his throat.

She wants the armor gone. She wants him exposed, his body hers for the reading. She wants him with nowhere to hide.

“Karen,” Matt says. His mouth moves restlessly against her cheek. “Karen -”

He's losing it. From her taste, her heat, from the touch of her lips. He's losing to her. 

She kisses him again, quick and fierce, then draws back and watches his lips gape soundlessly. “Karen,” he finally manages. “You. You in a hurry to get home?”

It's tempting to say that she is, just because he clearly wants to hear the opposite. But if it means denying herself something that _she_ wants, what's the point in that? 

“I don't know,” Karen says, her breath on his cheek. “What did you have in mind?”

“Detour.” His lips rub together, like he’s savoring her. “We could get off the street. Go up.”

_Up_ means scaling the side of the building, apparently. At her nod, Matt unholsters his clubs and shoots a line up high on a nearby fire escape. “Trust me to the first landing?”

There's a slant to his lips that Karen can't interpret. If this is some kind of test for her, it's the wrong one; trusting Daredevil with her physical safety has never been an issue. “Let's give it a shot,” she says.

It happens fast. Arms locked around his neck, heels tucked up, she lets him do the work, powering through a run and a jump that sends them swinging upwards. The fire escape rattles when they land; she laughs, a little breathless. “You wake a lot of people up like that? Bumbling around outside their windows?”

“Bumbling,” he protests, but he's grinning, bright and wide. It’s a sight she hasn't seen in a long time. He jerks a thumb at the metal staircase. “After you?”

“Really? Stairs? Is that all you got, Murdock?”

The grin turns so dazzling it almost hurts. “I think people usually say ‘don't look down.’ Let me know if that's good advice?”

This time, Karen has to hook her legs around his waist. It's no hardship. Arms still tight around his neck, she hooks her chin over his shoulder and holds on with all she's got while he balances on the edge of the railing, then launches them up to the next level.

It's a rush, cold air in her face, her hair flying, the ground spinning away beneath her. And Matt, agile and solid and strong against her, moving like he was made to do. No uncertainty, no hesitation, just action. Her heartbeat is in her ears when they finally hit the roof, and she thinks she's laughing again, but it's hard to tell. She's soaring.

“Oh my God,” Karen finally says when they land, feet firmly planted on concrete, body still pressed tightly against Matt’s.

“Vertigo? It’ll pass,” he says, but Karen shakes her head. It’s New York spread out before them, thousands of lights and thousands of shadows. Compared to the sprawl of the city, the sky above her barely registers; it’s an afterthought, pointless next to the stories being lived out there on the streets, in the light and in the dark.

She's still riding high on adrenaline, though, from the fight below and their wild trip up and the feel of him against her, and Karen's sure he's picking up on it. If she can hear her heart pounding, he certainly can.

But she's pretty sure his is pounding, too. Matt's breathing through parted lips again, a gentle arch that Karen's thinking about kissing into action. His fingers are flexing at her hips, digging in deep, and Karen would give him the same treatment if it weren't for that damned armor.

She's sick of him being locked away from her. She's done with it.

“You gonna tell me where the zipper is on this thing, or are you gonna hold still while I go looking?”

“Both -” Matt's tongue darts over his lip. “Both have their appeal.”

Her choice. Good. Karen rests her hand below his waist, just where the zipper would be to Matt Murdock’s work trousers. She can’t feel his dick through all that leather - not to mention, surely the suit’s got a cup built right in - but she’s willing to bet that the weight of her hand is registering to _him_ right now. And indeed, only a moment later, Matt blows out a breath, yanks off his gloves, and tosses them to the ground. 

Taking Karen's hand, he leads her to a zipper that begins high beneath his arm. She drags it down slowly, listening to the give of the tiny metal teeth, until it ends down past his hip, at the very top of his thigh. 

Matt's wearing another layer underneath. It's black and skin-tight, reminding her of the shirt he used to wear when he was just the man in a mask, and it feels nice when she skims her fingers over it, satiny and body-warm. But she can only reach so much; the armor is still infuriatingly in her way, so Karen squeezes his waist and says, “Finish the job.”

“Okay. Yeah. Okay.” Matt's swaying slightly, leaning into her touch. “How about - over there?”

A small brick structure sits near the center of the roof, housing a stairwell, or mechanical equipment, maybe - Karen isn't sure. It’s warmer there, sheltered from the wind, and as soon as they reach it Matt pulls off his helmet and drops it at her feet. 

There it is. The image burns into her brain in the short moments before he begins working his way out of the suit: Matt's familiar face, wearing the Devil’s body.

She'd pictured it in her mind before, of course, played that mental game dozens of times. Sometimes she'd begin with her own memories, thinking back on that night in the warehouse and wishing the helmet away; other times, she played it with the videos, pausing the fights to focus on the blurry line of Daredevil’s jaw, to imagine the mask gone, the slope of his nose and forehead revealed….

It was never all that difficult. It grew startlingly easy when she shaded in a bruise she'd seen Matt wear, high on his cheekbone, and added a wicked cut on his lip. She’d kissed around it so carefully, once.

Some guy had knocked into Matt in a stairwell. He’d missed a step, and bitten down hard. So the story went.

“I spent all that time trying to figure out what the hell was going on with you,” Karen says. “And here it is.”

Matt stills, hands at his waist, chin jerking up. Doesn’t know what to say, or doesn’t know what she _wants_ him to say; either way, he’s making a mistake, because -

“I didn’t tell you to _stop_ ,” Karen says, and heat floods through her when Matt immediately gets back to work, pulling the suit down past his hips with a vicious tug. His boots come off in a graceless rush, leaving him standing before her all in black, a dark figure in the shadows, an echo of that very first night in the rain.

She moves. The brick wall behind him is rough beneath the palm of her left hand, and his hair is thick and soft between the fingers of her right. Karen pulls, and his head follows the motion so, so easily; she kisses him hard, biting at his lip, and he groans at the sharp press of her teeth.

His flimsy black pants leave little to the imagination. Matt’s swelling against her, dick twitching as it fattens, and Karen rocks her hips, chasing the feeling, chasing his need. Open-mouthed, she kisses over his throat, drinking in the heat pulsing beneath his skin; good thing he’s warm, because winter be damned, he’s coming out of the rest of those clothes. He’s going to stand before her bare.

Matt shivers delightfully when she rucks up his shirt and runs her hands over his muscled back. He's quick to take a hint, too, dragging the shirt up over his head and tossing it aside, but Karen turns her head away when he seeks out her mouth. 

The scars high on his chest are silvery in the night, and thickly corded under her fingertips. If they’d ever made it to a bed, no matter how low the lights were, she couldn’t have missed them; how much of his story would she have been able to piece together herself if she’d had the chance to read it by touch?

(The woman who _had_ been in his bed, his college romance turned fellow fighter, she must have known every line. “Nice to know I wasn’t being _physically_ cheated on,” Karen had said, the night Matt made his confessions; ultimately, she’d believed that part was actually true because of how hard he’d flinched, as if she’d struck bone.)

“Yeah, I would’ve had a few questions about these,” Karen says now, pressing her hand over the nasty one she finds on his abdomen. Matt flinches anew, maybe from her words, maybe from the first sweep of her fingers beneath his waistband. Just inching her thumb over slightly makes him shake against her, a body-rocking tremor that seems to strip a layer of his control away.

What’s below it is strength and action, all for her. Matt pulls her tightly against him, mouthing at her neck, while his big hands roam her back, her sides, tugging at the hem of her skirt until it's hiked up her her waist and his hardness is pressed against her underwear.

It's very good. It's not _enough_ , even though Matt's short, shocky breaths suggest that, before long, it might just be enough for him. When she eases his pants down over his jutting dick, he gasps, “Karen, Karen, I don't have -” into her neck.

“Good thing I do,” she says, and breaks away to find her purse - it had ended up on the ground next to them at some point - and pull out a condom, one she’d tucked in there the night of their first date and never taken out. 

Matt holds on like he’s drowning, clinging to Karen’s shoulders and back while she rolls the condom down. After she drags her hand back up, giving him a nice, firm, stroke, his hands are suddenly everywhere, tugging at her panties one minute, unbuttoning her blouse the next. 

He’s breaking. She loves it.

The weight of his palm against her breast is something else to love, and Karen unhooks her bra to make it that much better. Matt’s hands slip beneath the fabric at once - message received - and she gasps at the first drag of his thumb over her nipple.

Her blouse is gaping open, her coat is somewhere on the ground, but heat is rolling through Karen in waves. She slips her underwear and stockings down, then takes Matt back in hand and begins slowly rubbing herself with the head of his dick.

“God damn,” Matt says, more breath than words, and it hits Karen’s ears like a victory, like a prize. She kisses those pretty lips and dirty mouth, gripping his hair while she makes it deep, and Matt makes a low, desperate sound and lifts her up with apparent ease, strong hands cupping her ass. When he turns them around, putting the wall at her back, she locks her legs around his waist and uses the brick behind her as leverage to raise herself a little higher. His dick makes for a good weight in her hand, and Karen doesn’t rush it as she works him inside. 

Slow. Slow. Matt’s mouth has gone slack, his breathing rough. Slow, slow - he throbs, and Karen tightens around him instinctively, holding onto the feeling, the fullness; he groans and swells and it’s good, it’s _good_ , but there’s something Karen wants to make clear. 

“You don’t get to finish before I do,” she says, low, shaping the words against his lips. They sink in right away, she can tell by the sudden hard pulse of his dick, but that’s not the response she’s looking for. “You hear me?”

The choked noise that tears from Matt’s throat is better, but it’s the nearly frantic bobbing of his head that prompts Karen to say, “Good,” and rock forward, pressing her chest to his chest, hooking her arms around his neck.

One thrust and Matt freezes, panting, face buried in the hollow of her throat. But then he manages another, and another, and Karen spreads her hand wide against his shoulder just to feel the way his muscles are trembling, the way he's clinging to control.

Not because he thinks she's fragile, not to keep her safe. But because he’s barely holding himself together. Because these are the moments before he shatters.

Despite what she said, Karen won't actually mind if he does. She'll take him on his knees. She'll take his mouth.

The cracked syllable that falls from Matt's lips may have begun life as her name, but it ends in a stuttered groan, and Matt's teeth seize sharply onto the curve of her shoulder like it’s his body's last line of defense. 

Karen has mercy.

With a roll of her hips, she grinds against Matt, taking more of what she needs. The slow drag is a sweet match for the pressure of him full and thick inside her, and she claims it again, and again, and again. Karen’s pulse is pounding deep at her center, a heavy, insistent beat, and Matt's is there too, they're together, they're the _same_ , they want, and they want, and they'll have -

The brink is there. It's easy to soar.

And it's easy to take Matt with her. When she tightens and shudders, he groans so deep she can feel it in her core. Just as he's felt her every breath, her every sigh, her every whisper all along.

Eyes open, Karen captures the moment: Matt's slack jaw and parted lips, the flushed column of his throat, the prickle of sweat at his temple. A snapshot that's hers, and only hers, to keep.

They've never slow-danced, but it's as if their bodies are falling into the rhythm anyway, swaying together slightly, with Karen's feet back on the ground, her hands clasped around his neck, his at her waist. If she'd ever dragged him to his feet at Josie’s when a song she liked came on, they might have held each other like this. It disquiets Karen; when Matt murmurs her name, she’s quick to say, “If you ask me out to dinner, you're gonna wish you hadn't.”

He breathes out, a puff of warm air against her skin. “No, ah.” His nose is buried against her neck, and before he pulls back, Matt inhales so strongly that Karen can feel it in the lift of his shoulders, in the broadening of his chest: his own snapshot moment, Matt storing her up to keep. 

When he lifts his head, Matt says, “I got you something.”

Karen raises her eyebrows. He steps away, bending to extract something from a hidden pocket of the suit; Karen lets herself appreciate every line and every curve of that bend before Matt straightens and holds the object out to her.

“You got me a phone,” she says flatly, thinking of every joke Foggy ever made about Matt and his women and his phones. “A burner of my very own?”

Matt shakes his head. “Belonged to our new friend.” He jerks his chin over his shoulder in the general direction of their encounter with the jackass. “Thought maybe you could get something from it.”

Tap. Swipe. No fingerprint lock, no passcode. “Yeah. Maybe I can.” Texts, call log, browser history. A new trail to follow, with maybe some answers as to what was going on in that time bomb of an apartment building at the end of it - “Thanks,” Karen adds sincerely, turning the phone over in her hands. There’s something sparking in her chest, small and delicate next to the tinderbox of anger she’s grown used to. It’s different. She’s not sure what to make of it, and she's not ready to find out. But it’s warm.

When she looks up again, after stowing the phone in her purse, Matt’s pulled on his black pants and is tucking the tied-off condom into his pocket. A faint frown line is creasing his forehead, and it’s so similar to his “accidentally picked up Foggy’s p.b. & j. knife by the sticky end” expression that a laugh bubbles up in Karen’s throat.

He cocks his head; she shakes hers. His mouth twists, and he disappears beneath his tight black shirt for a moment. When his head pops back through, his hair’s a mess. Not that it’ll matter beneath the mask.

“So, um. When I catch up with our friend’s buddy Jay, I'll give you a call.” He pauses. “If your number hasn't changed?”

“It hasn't.” Karen finishes buttoning up her blouse, then leans in and brushes her lips against his cheek. “It's a date, Daredevil.”

*

She takes the stairs down to the street.

Dawn is still hours away, but gray is seeping into a corner of the sky, slow and quiet and welcome. The night air is cold on Karen’s cheeks, but her blood is running high, too much heat in her veins for any chill to match.

She doesn’t look to the rooftops. There’s no need. Matt was still working his way into the red suit when she left, but by now she’s sure he’s with her. She doesn’t need to see the shapes of the shadows to know she’s not alone.

He’ll follow her all the way to her building, right up until her deadbolt slides home, and her bed creaks under her weight, and her lamp clicks off. And she’ll follow him, too. Her smell pressed into his skin, her taste on his tongue, the echo of her pulse lingering in his ears, the warmth of her hands still branding his back.

There are blocks left to go, but Karen takes her time. She's in no hurry.

It’s a good night.

**Author's Note:**

> Claiming this for my [Daredevil Bingo](http://daredevilbingo.dreamwidth.org) "voyeurism" square.
> 
> [tumblr!](http://significantowl.tumblr.com) Always ready to flail about Matt/Karen, come say hi :D


End file.
